Continuing development of hardware and applications for home computing, coupled with explosive growth of the global network called the Internet has motivated more and more people to have at least one computer in the home or in a small business. For the purpose of description and teaching in the present application, the concept of a home environment is used. The inventor intends this concept to include any equivalent environment, such as a small business, non-profit organization, government organization, and the like, which might use systems of the sort taught herein. The references to home systems and home computers and the like are meant to include all such situations.
Many people in fact, have two or more computers at home, and many more are contemplating adding at least a second computer. A parallel trend is to adding one or more computerized appliances in addition to a home computer. These appliances are such as Internet Telephones, computerized set-top boxes, and the like.
A problem with more than one computer or network using-appliance, such as an Internet Telephone, WEB browsing set top box, etc. at home is that, just like in the office, a need quickly becomes apparent for connecting the computers in a network of some sort so resources like a printer and a modem may be shared. Still, even if a network were provided allowing sharing of common devices like a printer, allowing each computer to have Internet access is a problem. Given one Internet Service Provider (ISP) and one Internet account, even if several computers have simultaneous access to the Internet provider's server, only one user at a time may browse the Internet. There are traditional, but expensive solutions. Two or more Internet accounts could be maintained, for example, and each computer could have its own modem and dedicated telephone line. For a single family having multiple home computers however, this is not a good solution. Further, the lines in most standard analog home telephone systems are lacking somewhat in the ability to transmit certain types of data at a consistently high frequency. These types of telephone lines can suffer radiation leakage, etc.
Another difficulty with existing home network systems, is that proposed multimedia integrated systems in the current art depend typically on methods that are not compatible with existing home and office wiring. These systems often require that new compatible lines be installed that typically operate at a much higher frequency than can be carried successfully by conventional analog lines. As a result, such systems are expensive to implement and limited in operation. A system and apparatus is needed to enable real-time multimedia data distribution which is also capable of maintaining a high signal strength over existing telephone wiring of most homes and offices.